Oil holds its ground: Brent at $98.15 as the market weighs U.S.–Iran talks

Oil prices were largely steady during early trading on Thursday in Asia, following gains in previous sessions, while market participants weighed the latest developments in the peace talks between the U.S. and Iran together with regional trends in crude oil exports — as Al Jazeera reports, citing the Reuters agency.

Brent crude futures rose by 12 cents, or 0.1 percent, to $98.15 a barrel by 00:45 GMT. U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude settled at $90.35 a barrel, with a slight fall of 7 cents, or 0.1 percent. Both main benchmarks had risen by about $1 a barrel in the previous session.

According to Reuters, Brent rose by about 14 percent during September — the strongest monthly performance since July — while WTI closed the month with about a 5 percent rise. The stabilisation comes after months of strong fluctuations caused by the U.S.–Iran war and the continuing disruptions to maritime traffic in the Strait of Hormuz and Bab al-Mandeb.

Analysts are closely following whether the diplomatic talks between Washington and Tehran will lead to a full reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, the strait through which about a fifth of global oil exports passed before the start of the war.